Jazz music’s sonorous chords and jaunty improvisations once dominated entertainment venues throughout the nation.  Now, several years into the twenty-first century, the glitzy legacies of musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and Billie Holiday are regarded — to the consternation of contemporary jazz enthusiasts — as remnants of a bygone era.

That is why Wynton Marsalis, the Pulitzer prize-winning trumpeter and founder/artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center spent the last two decades planning for a lofty entertainment hall, where jazz artists and their fans can convene to celebrate the free-spirited quality of jazz music. The result: Frederick P. Rose Hall — a recently erected $128 million edifice that houses 3 concert and performance spaces, an education center, and a recording studio.  As the world’s preeminent hub of jazz music, Frederick P. Rose Hall will also advance scholarship on jazz and its historical significance in America.    

When asked how jazz musicians of the previous century would respond to the new hall, Mr. Marsalis answered in his characteristic emphatic tone: “They would probably start crying. They gave a lot and fought hard to earn recognition for jazz in our culture. We respect and honor them with this center.”      

Toyin

You raise good issues and unquestionably there are problems in a system that leaves so many African American children unadopted. On the other hand, I think you are missing some information about how the system works, and as a result, your comments are oversimplified. Consider the following:

(1) White, middle-class adoptive parents who do try to adopt children of color, or simply try to adopt in general and are open to African American or mixed-race children, routinely experience very long waits and bureaucratic delays. Ask around and you will find lots of stories of this. People who can afford to adopt internationally often do so because they don’t want the wait. This is not to say there is no racism, only that there are other major factors that also drive the trend you describe.

(2) The U.S. domestic adoption system in most, if not all, states is a fiercely two-tier system. Most of the white infants placed for adoption are placed privately to couples who pay a lot of money to complete the adoption. Many of the African American and Latino children available for adoption come through the state social service system, and by the time they are placed, have been through multiple foster care placements, entered the system due to abuse or neglect, have medical issues, and/or are “legal risk” adoptions. When white parents (or, I imagine, any parents) go to the state agencies looking for waiting children, these are most often the children presented as needing families. When they go the international or private domestic route, the children awaiting families are a very different group, with far fewer difficult issues to deal with. Many families are not willing to take on the range of issues they face when adopting children from state care, yet I think most of the AA children awaiting families are in state care. Virtually all of the people I know who have tried to go through state child welfare systems to adopt have had this experience, as have I.

A system that works this way is undeniably racist, but not because adoptive parents make the choices they do. It was racist long before the white middle class adoptive parents got there.

(3) There is a long history in the U.S. of social workers being very reluctant to place African American children with white families, and for a time, I believe there was a strong effort to explicitly work against such placements in most cases, led by the National Association of Black Social Workers. I think there is still a strong feeling in this direction among many in both the African American and adoption communities. At the same time, there have always been more white families willing to adopt than African American families (when compared to the numbers of waiting children), which makes such a policy unworkable. The practice of making placements based strictly on racial matching is now illegal, but from what I’ve heard, it is still common, just not explicit. If so, that also works against white adoptive parents who are willing to parent African American or other children of color.

What is the point of all this? That the issue you raise is real, but the reasons for choosing international adoption are complex, and there are other key factors that either have little to do with race, or that are racial issues but that have their origins in racism in the social service system, in society at large, or in the complexities of how to raise children in a way that is culturally appropriate, rather than in the attitudes of adoptive parents.

Your final phrase, “the hidden racism of international adoptions,” to me is glib and unjustified. There is plenty of racism in society and the adoption system, but international adoptions are neither a source of it nor even in most individual cases a reflection of it. The system as a whole functions to leave African American children without families while white children find them, and that is racist. It does not do so only because white parents with racist attitudes are looking overseas for children needing homes — it’s also, I’d say more importantly, because parents are looking overseas in part because the racist system that exists makes it so difficult for them to successfully adopt domestically.

Yes there are parents who want kids who look like them and this perpetuates the racism. But it’s very, very far from the whole story.

Re: “These trends may be changing as a younger, more racially fluid generation becomes parents” — huh??? This is an interesting theory, but I find it hard to believe. I’m an older parent, and I have never seen any evidence to suggest that between my generation (people now in their late 40s and 50s) and those now in, say, their early 30s, there is some great divide of racial flexibility and consciousness. Certainly, earlier battles against racism have led to a different set of life experiences for those younger than me, so maybe I’m missing something. But is there any evidence to back up this assertion that the younger generation is more “racially fluid?” That they are moreso in a way that would affect their choices about parenting? I think of changes in the level of racism in the world as being mostly about institutions and how they behave, not about generational changes in consciousness. But I’d be interested to learn about something that suggests that’s wrong.

Another note — an international adoption can cost $40,000, but the cost does not “hover around” that level. It’s typically closer to half to three-quarters of that.

Also, FYI, the use of the word “export” to describe international adoption is widely viewed as offensive. Children are not products. Even in places where profiteering service providers are accused of treating the children as if they were commodities, that does not make them so.

—Tom

In The Fray Contributor

MY LETTER TO YOU:

Ms. Louison — I just finished reading your article online and I felt compelled to write to you. I got the link to your article from a listerve to which I belong. The listserve is made up of people associated with Guatemala adoptions, so I warn you that you may start getting reactions from people on the list. I personally wanted to write to you to let you know that I was disappointed with the negative slant of your article. I would like to know how you gathered your information and how are you personally affected by adoption — specifically international adoption? It seemed that there were many figures and comments that were simply not true. Please allow me to address those: First of all, children are NOT exports. Insinuating that they are is what is truly troubling. I quote you as saying, “Americans do not go overseas because of a lack of children…” Please let me correct you. My husband and I DID choose to go to Guatemala because we were unable to adopt a HEALTHY infant in the U.S. without feeling that we had to “win over” a birthmother in hopes she would pick us. Not to mention the fear that the child could be taken from us if the birthmother (1) has a change of heart within a specific amount of time; (2) decides to marry the boy/man who got her pregnant; (3) the courts decide that she has cleaned up her act and “deserves” her child back. We wanted a healthy infant that we could parent, not co-parent with a birthmother. We felt that was the healthiest situation for a child and would not be as confusing. Third — we did not spend $40,000 for our adoption like you stated. I think it would be difficult for you to find many people who actually did spend that much. I think that $20,000-25,000 would be more like it. People spend that much (and WAY more!) on a car — isn’t it worth the money to give a child a family? You also said, “here were approximately 542,000 children in the foster care system in the United States as of September 30, 2001.” Do you know if all of these children were available for adoption or just stuck in our failing foster care system? Our country MUST reform the foster care system to allow adoptive parents to adopt these children without ongoing problems and fears. Sadly, it is easier to adopt a child internationally than in the U.S. because of the finality of the adoption itself. I don’t want a child ripped out of my home and my heart because of a loophole in a U.S. law. Adoption should be forever and some states’ adoption laws don’t seem to view it that way. You said: “Middle class parents send them an undeniable message by chosing to predominantly adopt from abroad: you are less desirable than a child whose skin color is closer to our own.” That was not part of our criteria when we decided to pursue adoption. We wanted a healthy infant who would be in our family forever. Sadly, we just couldn’t find a baby to match those criteria in the U.S. Birthmothers in the U.S have different opportunities than birthmothers in other countries. We are a rich country compared to other countries, such as Guatemala. Birthmothers here have birth control readily available, Medicaid, welfare to help them get back on their feet, and programs to assist unwed mothers. These things are not available in many other countries, so their option is adoption. Many times, the children born in other countries are born without birth defects caused from drug use because drugs just aren’t available to them. We felt that we had the best chance for a healthy baby if we looked at adopting from outside the U.S. Birthmothers in other countries just want what all mothers want — a safe, healthy home for their child. Does an American child deserve a home more than a Guatemalan-born child? Perhaps instead of taking the time to bash those of us who have adopted internationally, you could better use your time to investigate the problems with adopting within the U.S. Thank you for your time.

— Cindy, adoptive parent to one son born in Guatemala

YOUR RESPONSE:

Dear Ms. ____:

I appreciate your response to the ITF PULSE posting. I am not an expert on adoption, but felt it was important to highlight some of the interesting and disappointing implications of The Christian Science Monitor article. While I understand this is a personal issue for you, I in no way meant to disparage international adoption, but instead merely sought to contrast it with adoption of African American children by citizens of other countries. I hope you will keep reading In The Fray, and I encourage you to respond to the post if you would like a more public forum for your comments.

— Laura Louison

MY RESPONSE:

I am disappointed that your article made it seem like you WERE an expert — quoting figures and statements as if they were truth and that International adoption was fueled by racist Caucasians. How can you twist those statisitics into “racism?”

We had love to give and our child was desparately in need of a home. How could we say no, just to sit in line for an American child? Sorry — that seems a little prejudiced to me — that an American child should be adopted before a child from another country.
PLEASE investigate your statements thoroughly before you publish them. I wonder how many readers may now have a negative view and think that, because I adopted from Guatemala, I must be racist. That just seems absurd…

—Cindy

In The Fray Contributor

The State Department’s international adoption statistics indicate that international adoptions by United States citizens have increased by 140 percent since 1995. These numbers mask a troubling insight into the racial politics of the American middle class.  As Americans fly to China, Russia and Guatemala for their children, (14,396 children in 2003), African American babies must be exported to other countries to find loving families.

As Dawn Davenport reports in The Christian Science Monitor, citizens of other countries increasingly look to the United States to find healthy African American babies ready for adoption. Americans do not go overseas because of a lack of children: while adoptive parents can wait up to five years for an American-born Caucasian child, the waiting time for parents eager to adopt an African American boy is under a year.  

“I think that more Americans would adopt these babies if they knew they were available,” says Stacy Hyer, a white American living in Germany with two adopted black children.

But to blame the paucity of interracial adoptions on lack of media coverage does not fully address the complexity of the problem. Adoption is an expensive business, Davenport reports, and the costs of international adoption can hover around $40,000, compared to $10,000 to $12,000 for an African American male. While these numbers vary according to circumstance, it may not be frugality that drives Americans abroad, but lingering concerns and worries about the reality mixed race families face. Can Caucasian parents provide a good home for an African American child? Will he lose his connection to his culture? Who will do his hair?  Will he be the victim of heightened racism in a suburban, all-white community?  International adoptive parents may be more immune to such fears, and certainly, there are wonderful American parents whose love defies both their individual and community’s prejudices. Nonetheless, as African American children languish in foster care, middle class parents send them an undeniable message by choosing to predominantly adopt from abroad: you are less desirable than a child whose skin color is closer to our own. The adoption fees for African American babies reflect this terrifyingly prevalent attitude.

These trends may be changing as a younger, more racially fluid generation becomes parents, but the numbers can’t help but be disquieting.  An informal search for prospective parents revealed only three couples interested in adopting an African American child, while pages and pages of smiling, heterosexual couples sought Caucasian babies. Caucasian and international orphans undoubtedly need love too, but according to the Child Welfare League, there were approximately 542,000 children in the foster care system in the United States as of September 30, 2001, of which 38 percent were African-American. November is National Adoption Awareness Month. One can only hope that it will be used as a platform to increase awareness about the hidden racism of international adoptions.

llouison

Jonathan Yardley of The Washington Post writes about J.D. Salinger and The Catcher in the Rye, in this delayed criticism.

Of the book Mr. Yardley calls “the essential document of American adolescence,” he asks these questions: “Why is a book about a spoiled rich kid kicked out of a fancy prep school so widely read by ordinary Americans, the overwhelming majority of whom have limited means and attend, or attended, public schools? Why is Holden Caulfield nearly universally seen as ‘a symbol of purity and sensitivity’ (as The Oxford Companion to American Literature puts it) when he’s merely self-regarding and callow? Why do English teachers, whose responsibility is to teach good writing, repeatedly and reflexively require students to read a book as badly written as this one?”

The above are not all answered satisfactorily, but the article does re-examine the merits of the book, one of the most influential ever in the modern world of American teenagers.

Vinnee Tong

“This is thousands and thousands of potential terrorist attacks … It’s like they knocked off the Fort Knox of explosives.”

— Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, speaking about the approximately 350 tons of explosives that have been thieved from the al-Qaqaa military complex in Iraq.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, informed the UN Security Council of the theft last night. According to ElBaradei’s report, these explosives — which consist primarily of HMX and RDX, crucial ingredients in the types of plastic explosives that have been used to devastating effect in car bombs in Iraq — went missing during America’s watch. It was during the “theft and looting of governmental installations,” that occurred in the days following April 9, 2003, that these explosives disappeared into the ether. Mission accomplished, indeed, Mr. Bush.      

Mimi Hanaoka

The current spate of Islamically affiliated violence and activity — from the storming of the Ka’aba in Saudi Arabia in 1979 to the September 11 attacks — is the last dying breath, albeit protracted, of Islamic violence, insists Sadik J. Al-Azm.

Sadik J. Al-Azm is Professor Emeritus of modern European philosophy at the University of Damascus, and in his recent article published in the Boston Review, he makes the case that the world is not headed, in any significant sense, toward a clash of civilizations. In Al-Azm’s conception, we are witnessing the last days of serious Islamic violence; while Islamist violence certainly seems to be going out with a bang, and not with a whimper, it is certainly on its way out.

Writing about the September 11 attacks and Juhaiman Al-’Utaibi’s 1979 storming and occupation of the Ka’aba in protest against what he perceived as the hypocritical Saudi regime, Al-Azm states: “But both acts of terrorism exposed the essential weakness of today’s Islamists: the embrace of the inevitable emergence of a new Islamic order is itself a symptom of a self-deluding fantasy that has afflicted the Arab and Muslim world for more than two centuries.”

Al-Azm continues to state that the primary motivating factor of Islamist violence is the heart-breaking disconnect between the halcyon days of Islamic civilization, on one hand, and “being the object of a history made, led, manipulated, and arbitrated by others,” on the other. Therefore, Al-Azm explains:

“So what else can the Muslim or Arab do but muddle through his sad perplexity in the 21st century with the conviction that perhaps one day God or history or fate or the revolution or the moral order of the universe will raise his umma to its proper role once again. Under these circumstances, various kinds of direct-action violence (including terrorism in some of its most spectacular forms) present themselves as the only means of relief from this hopeless impasse.”

Not many scholars would argue with the claim that Islamist violence is a function of desperation and frustration with real and perceived oppression. However, Al-Azm neglects to highlight the historical and contemporary sources for the continued growth of Islamist movements from the 1960s onwards, which include the Arab defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the failure of “modern secular nationalism,” the Egyptian-Israeli war and Arab oil embargo in 1973, the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Wahhabi-oil connection, the concrete consequences of modernization in the Muslim world such as rapid population growth, an increase in urban population, mass literacy, a large young segment of the population, and high poverty and unemployment rates. While desperation is a crucial factor, there are also concrete forces at play.

For Al-Azm, the West and the Islamic world are “two supposedly clashing sides … so unequal in power, military might, productive capacity, efficiency, effective institutions, wealth, social organization, science, and technology that the clash can only be of the inconsequential sort.”

The question that Al-Azm doesn’t sufficiently answer, however, is how long this protracted death of Islamic violence is supposed to last. Is it merely a question of time until geo-political factors eventually tame Islamic violence? If the current bloody catastrophe in Iraq is merely a particularly bloody blip in an otherwise calming picture, why does the violence show little sign of abating? And most importantly, what will the new, less violent Islamist worldview look like, and what form will it take? What exactly is it that the world is transitioning toward?

Mimi Hanaoka

As I tap the keys on my computer keyboard, the ferocious winds outside my beachfront condo are howling and rattling the storm shutters. It seems to be saying “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll try to blow your condo down.” Or, perhaps it is saying, “Feel my power and respect it.” You know, I like the second voice far more than the first one.

You might well ask, “What are you doing staying in a beach evacuation area, on a barrier island, in the middle of a hurricane named Frances?” Some subjective folks could possibly answer … “Where there is no sense, there is no feeling.” However, the simple answer is, it is for me, a once-in-a-lifetime experience and one that I would not have wanted to miss.

Proceeding at just five miles per hour, Frances probably will be known as the slowest-moving, most widespread hurricane in the history of Florida hurricanes. With wind gusts up to 105 miles per hour, the enchantress who is guiding the storm is in no hurry to move on. It is moving over a 300-mile coastal front. South, Central and Northern Florida are all experiencing the effects of the power of Hurricane Frances.

All local TV stations give 24-hour coverage, hyping up the fear and anxiety, continually pounding viewers with all the terrible things that could occur. I think people already know what damage can be done in a hurricane without being brainwashed continually on every station. To be fair, the meteorologists do a super job in tracking the storm and locating its land fall, but all the rest of the hype is magnifying unnecessary stress.

How much better it would be if they showed tension-easing meditation classes, stress-reducing programs and played pacifying, soothing music to help people relax and enjoy whatever nature brings. We’re going to experience a hurricane regardless. Accordingly, as long as we have battened down the hatches, if we can have a choice to enjoy the storm or fear it, I think most folks would choose enjoyment.

Everyone will have many diverse experiences in their lives, and the way they are envisaged will be recorded in their memory banks as a good or bad experience. With the correct mindset, the optimum positivity can always be established from the most detrimental, negative events.

In my eighth floor condo, which has an east and west vista, I look out towards the ocean. It is only 100 feet away from the edge of our development, (maybe not even that far). I watch huge waves bouncing into the air and crashing down with an almighty roar. The ocean waves are putting on a show of strength that I have never seen before. I am in awe of the magnificent beauty of its rollicking and heaving movements. Tossing and turning super wave energies, magnetically electrified with super potency and strength. It seems there is some greater power that is holding back the tide and stopping it from engulfing the whole development. I can understand why the ancient Greeks believed in so many gods with unique powers. I am thankful to the mythical water god for putting on such a splendid show. However, I must say, I am extraordinarily grateful to the wind enchantress that is holding back the waves.

As I look to the West, I can see a deserted road. On the A1A, I observe an empty, boarded-up shopping mall. Wind and rain lashes over a car park, as palm trees cavort an excruciating dance for survival. I see many empty houses and condos all boarded up. It has a very eerie sense to it, with the atmosphere of a ghost town. Even the birds have flown to safety, having the sense to take shelter in some nook or cranny.

I live in a holiday town that is accustomed to lots of traffic and people laughing as they cross the road with beach chairs in their hands. They go to lay in the sunshine and enjoy bathing in the calm Atlantic ocean. But not today, for this day belongs to Hurricane Frances. I suppose this could conceivably be my last day on earth, if that normally smooth ocean decides it wants to take over my space with a tidal storm surge wave. I should be feeling anxiety, panic, and trepidation. Instead, I cannot get beyond my joyful feelings of being privileged in having a grandstand seat to the most spectacular show of nature’s power I am ever going to witness first hand. As bedtime beckons, I know my dreams will be sailing in space, on the wings of the enchantress.

Sunday morning arrives and because of the size of Frances, we can still expect a full day of storms once the slow moving eye heads more inland towards the Florida Panhandle. I find my telephone line has gone down. But I am thankful I still have electricity, for over two million homes are without it.

Thankfully, the life-threatening tidal storm surge has been put off for another day, another time. I am thankful to the universal powers that control the tides. One other thing about Frances; she was a very quite storm, for there was not one clap of thunder nor one streak of lightning as far as I am aware. She went about her nature’s business in a very dignified, leisurely manner.

Perhaps I have been hypnotized by the lady enchantress’ magnetic awesome power? And perhaps I do have a few slates loose in my exploratory mind? But, I would not have missed this experience for all the money in the world. I think most folks in Florida now realize it is nature that controls mother earth, not humans. I take my hat off and gently bow my head in respect to the powerful lady Frances, who sure knows how to kick up one phenomenal storm.

I do not recommend anyone follow my example and stay near the beach during a hurricane. I did take a gamble and it was not an intelligent thing to do … This was one off experience. I guess that is why some folks climb mountains. You can be assured, I have great respect for the power of nature and will seek a safer haven from any future hurricanes. But, that said, I did enjoy every moment of being embraced by one of mother nature’s most powerful productions.

Maybe next hurricane season I will take a vacation to Europe and see what a storm I can kick up there.

Sixteen months after principal shooting was wrapped, the cast and crew met Wednesday night at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for a special screening of the film Ray. There are times when high hopes and expectations can make what you’re waiting for lose its gleam and color. This wasn’t one of them. For all of us in that audience, the wait was worth it.

The film was finished in time for Ray Charles to view it, and what he saw pleased him. Just tell what happened, he is reported to have said to Hackford, don’t sugarcoat it.

Hackford’s labor of love shines as a result. The film honors Ray Charles regardless of whether the characters sharing the screen with actor and chameleon Jamie Foxx love him or hate him. In Ray, Taylor Hackford has created a reverential tribute to Mr. Charles, and he’s done so with an invisible hand, neither hiding his flaws nor pushing his praises. Writer Jimmy White has scripted a story which brings to light the severity of the initial obstacles Ray Charles faced, then leaves them behind as Ray’s extraordinary devotion to music, and his faith in his mother and in himself, lead him to make a mark on the world which has crossed borders of all kinds.

Ray is the story of a man who changed the world by transcending the obstacles, and holding fast to the gifts, that his identity attracted to him like bees to honey.

“This novel will become world famous and will be a source of satisfaction for the author, after the false accusations levelled against him.”

— Miroslav Toholj, publisher of the forthcoming book by Radovan Karadzi, a former Bosnian Serb leader who is one of the most wanted men in the world and who has been accused by the United Nations of various charges, including genocide and crimes against humanity.

The book, which will be titled Miraculous Chronicles of the Night, is a semi-autobiographical historical novel. Radovan Karadzi, who has evaded the United Nations and has been in hiding for the past eight years, has been indicted twice of war crimes by the UN tribunal in The Hague, and he is charged with massacring Bosnian Muslims and Croats in the former Yugoslavia.  Karadzi has been charged by the UN of organizing the slaughter of up to 6,000 Muslims in Srebrenica in July of 1995 “in order to kill, terrorise and demoralise the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat population.”

Miroslav Toholj was previously a Bosnian Serb information minister and an associate of Radovan Karadzi.

Mimi Hanaoka

According to an article by MSNBC’s chief economic correspondent Martin Wolk, the rising price of oil now surpasses terrorism as the primary concern of economic forecasters. That’s ironic, given the frequency of oil spills in general, and the immediate environmental disaster discovered last Thursday in the Pacific Northwest’s Puget Sound.

Eric Nalder and Phuong Catle’s piece in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer provides a partial list of oil spills occurring along the West Coast of the United States over the past 20 years. They report that these mishaps occur at a rate of about once a month. Forensic chemists working to determine the source of these spills face not only the challenge of pinpointing suspects who may be unaware of ship leaks, but must also take into account the possibility that guilty parties may be leading them astray by tampering with evidence. In the article, Jim Bruya, a fingerprinting chemist in Seattle, noted:

“There have been cases where a ship’s crew, knowing it will be asked for a sample, has mixed fuels from two tanks filled at different locations to permanently contaminate evidence.”

In Puget Sound, oil cleanup crews are working 12-hour shifts “until they’re finished,” said Jake McLean, a supervisor for the Seattle-based National Response Corporation. The “Dalco Passage Mystery Spill” was reported on the morning of October 15, but weather conditions prevented cleanup crews from slowing the damage for several hours. “…We don’t know how big it is, where it came from, or where it’s headed,” State Department of Ecology spokeswoman Mary Ellen Voss said late Thursday. As of Monday evening, according to Department of Ecology spokesman Larry Altose, the list of suspects has been narrowed down from a dozen to two.

Environmental activists are angered by the slow response of government agencies to contain the damage.

“We know quite a lot about currents and tides in Puget Sound. And so even though it’s dark … knowing the approximate location of a spill could alert the agencies to the possibility of oil coming to shore in certain areas,” explained Kathy Fletcher, executive director of the environmental group People for Puget Sound.

Who needs terrorists? Fellow Americans, we can ruin the environment ourselves, by contributing to the latest fad: the philosophy of apathy.

“Slutty,” isn’t the first word that springs to my mind when thinking of the Islamic hijab — the headscarf worn by some Muslim women both as a sign of Islam and of womanhood — but that’s how Tissa Hami describes it.  And people love her for it.  

Iranian-American Tissa Hami, who performs wearing the traditional Islamic hijab, has been invited to perform as a guest comic on the Boston leg of the Allah Made Me Funny “Official Muslim comedy tour,” the purpose of which is “to make a comprehensive effort to provide effective, significant, and appropriate comedy with an Islamic perspective, which is both mainstream and cross-cultural.”

Preacher Mos, who has written for Saturday Night Life and for the comedian Damon Wayans, is the master of ceremonies of the tour, and he explains that “the purpose of my comedy reflects my Islamic beliefs that say we, as Muslims, cannot be isolationist. My choice of dialogue is laughter, with a message of overall commitment to improving society as a whole.”

Likewise, Hami’s aim seems to be education wrapped in the palatable form of stand-up comedy — she wants to show that “we’re not all terrorists, we’re not all fanatics. That not all Muslim women are oppressed and voiceless.” Hami (whose pre-comedy resume is littered with the Ivy League schools and Wall Street firms) absorbs the religious intolerance and cultural mistrust that has blossomed in post 9/11 America, reconfigures it, and ultimately forces her audience to confront both the humor and tragedy of the current socio-political climate. Her website warns: “People who  disapprove of her act will be taken hostage.”

Mimi Hanaoka